The Greek Tycoon's Reluctant Bride

He turned and took her by the shoulders. Her cheeks were still as round and soft as a child’s. She was, he reflected, despite the make-up and clothes, nothing more than the frightened little girl he’d comforted during storms, played endless games of cards with on rainy afternoons. The little girl who had gazed trustingly up into his face and asked, ‘You’ll never leave me, will you?’

And, damn it, he had said he wouldn’t.

‘Brianna,’ he asked gently, ‘what’s wrong?’

‘I want to come and live with you!’ she said in a rush. Tears brightened her eyes and she blinked them back. ‘Mama and Stavros are tired of me. They want me to marry, like you said. But, Demos…! I don’t want to.’ Her eyes widened, and a tear splashed onto his thumb.

He gazed down at her for a moment, at the need and fear so open and endless in her childish face, before he released her and moved out of the kitchen, back into the main space of the apartment. Through the sliding glass doors that led out onto the wide balcony he could see the aquamarine glint of Piraeus’s main harbour. He had been out on that water less than an hour ago, his eyes and mind on an endless horizon. Now, with a resolute sigh, he turned back to face his sister. ‘Why don’t you want to marry?’

‘Why don’t you?’ she tossed back, and he shook his head.

It was a question his mother asked him every time he went to her house. She’d ply him with her spinach pies and meltingly sweet baklava and then demand to know when he was bringing home his bride.

Demos just ignored her; there was no point in explaining that he didn’t want a wife, a family. He’d had the responsibility of one since he was twelve. He didn’t need any more.

He didn’t need this.

‘Marriage would be good for you,’ Demos said, his voice turning brusque.

Brianna let out a choked cry. ‘You hypocrite! You’re allowed to live alone, go to wild parties, have affairs and lovers—’

‘Brianna…’ Demos warned in a low voice. But she was too furious to take heed, or perhaps even to hear.

‘You get to do everything you want, to enjoy life,’ she cried, ‘and yet you want me to settle down like Mama did, like Rosalia and Agathe did, whether I’d be happy or not! You don’t care about any of us now that you’re rich, do you?’ She stood there trembling, her fists clenched at her sides, tears streaking down her cheeks.

‘I care about all of you,’ Demos retorted. ‘I always have.’ He felt a tide of fury rise up in him, threatening to drown him in memories and regrets, and he forced it back down. ‘More than you could ever know, Brianna.’

‘Some way you have of showing it! You haven’t been to see Mama in weeks. We still live in a house half the size of this apartment—’

‘Brianna—silence! You are talking about things you know nothing about.’ Demos slashed a hand through the air. ‘Nothing,’ he repeated in a steely voice.

Brianna shut her mouth and stared at him with wide frightened eyes. Demos regarded her for a moment, so angry and afraid, so young, and then with a muffled curse sank onto the sofa and raked a hand through his hair.

‘What do you mean, Mama and Stavros want you to marry? They can’t force you, surely?’

‘No…’ Brianna admitted in a small voice. ‘But they’re always hinting at it.’

‘Hints don’t mean anything. Mama’s been hinting to me for years.’ Admittedly her hints had the force of a sledgehammer, Demos thought, managing a wry smile. He was gratified to see Brianna give a tremulous little smile back.

‘Yes, but they won’t let me go out! I’m only twenty-one, Demos. I want to have fun…like you do.’

Demos jerked his head up and met Brianna’s pleading gaze. Like you do. The three words had the force of an accusation. A judgement. Even though Brianna did not intend them to be.

He didn’t want Brianna to have fun. Not like he did. Never like he did.

He was a hypocrite.

He wanted her to be safe, cared for. Protected. He just couldn’t be the one to do it. Not for Brianna’s sake. Not for his.

‘Like I do?’ he repeated slowly. He’d never considered himself to be wild. He was careful in his entertainment, choosy with his partners, but still he revelled in his freedom, revelled with a determination borne of too many years of self-denial.

Freedom, he acknowledged now with tired truthfulness, that was paling the longer he experienced it. He wanted more out of life. More for Brianna, more for himself.

He had just never expected it to be marriage. Marriage… unending, stifling responsibility…someone always needing him, never satisfied, never enough.

Althea didn’t need him at all. The thought made him smile.

‘Demos…?’ Brianna said in a halting voice, and his gaze snapped back to her as he nodded in grim acceptance.

‘You can stay the night. I’ll take you out to dinner.’ He forced a smile. ‘We’ll have fun. But tomorrow I’m taking you back home, where you belong.’

‘It’s not fair—’

Demos held up one hand in warning. ‘Don’t,’ he said in a hard voice, ‘tell me what is and is not fair.’ He softened his tone to add, ‘It’s best for you, Brianna. Trust me. I know this.’

That evening he took Brianna out to a reasonably trendy taverna—enough to impress, but hopefully not to entice. After she was in bed he called his mother.

‘Demos!’ Nerissa Leikos’s voice sounded strained with anxiety over the telephone. ‘I was so worried… Thank God she is safe with you.’

‘Yes…but, Mother, she is unhappy. I am…’ Demos chose his words carefully ‘…concerned.’

The silence on the other end of the line told him enough. There was cause for concern, for fear. ‘Is she in danger?’ he asked quietly. ‘Does she need care?’

‘She needs to be married,’ Nerissa said flatly. ‘She is the kind of girl who gets into trouble on her own, Demos. She sees you—’

‘What about me?’ Demos asked sharply.

Nerissa sighed. ‘Demos, it is different for a man. You may do as you like, go out as you like. But Brianna—she is young and easily influenced. And you know her history, how easily she can become…distraught. If she were protected in a stable relationship… If she saw you in a stable relationship…’ Nerissa trailed off delicately.

Demos knew what his mother was implying. Her hints had never been subtle. She wanted him married…for Brianna’s sake as well as his own. And for the first time he considered it, the image of Althea and her teasing smile flashing through his mind with seductive promise.

Perhaps in one fell swoop he could influence Brianna—show her something more positive than the playboy antics she’d been watching from afar.

Perhaps his marriage would be good for Brianna, good for Althea. Good for him. Perhaps it was time.

He sighed. ‘Thank you for telling me. I’ll bring Brianna back tomorrow.’

‘It will be good to see you here, Demos.’

Demos shrugged off the guilt that threatened to settle on him like a shroud. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been at his mother’s house. There were reasons he didn’t go back home. Home… His mother’s house had never been his home. Nerissa had married Stavros when Demos was twenty-four, just when he’d started making money, trading the provision of a millionaire for that of a working-class butcher.

Demos’s mouth twisted in sardonic acknowledgement of his own snobbery. Stavros provided decently for his wife and family, yet Demos could have given them so much more.

‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Itwill.’ But his words sounded hollow to his own ears, and as he severed the connection he was left staring into the darkness, lost in the shadows and memories of his past.

CHAPTER THREE

‘FOUND you.’